My girlfriend (F26) and I (M28) have been together a little over a year now. Prior to us dating, she had a primary partner (F26) who she had been with for close to a decade. When we started dating, her primary took a step back in their relationship and allowed my girlfriend to solely focus on building our relationship. They broke up around November/December last year.

About a month and a half ago, my girlfriend started talking to someone new (F27) where things turned to becoming more flirty and they started dating. This new person is married (not practicing polyamory or ever been poly) so they’re time together is obviously limited.

My girlfriend and I see each other 2 dedicated days a week (Thursday evenings and Saturdays). I live in a different city and our schedules just make this easier for the two of us. This other person doesn’t have dedicated days right now and they see each other a bit more randomly, but she’s also wanting to see my girlfriend more than what they already get to do. This is really causing my girlfriend to feel stressed.

She’s feeling exhausted, stressed, and like things have to be perfect when we’re together since I’ve been experiencing some anxiety with our relationship changing (we don’t talk as often anymore because she’s busy and we don’t spontaneously see each other as we did previously) and also having some insecurities pop up of not feeling worthy or like I’m enough. I’ve been doing the work and going to therapy and started medication to get my side of things more under control.

I remind my girlfriend to take time for herself and ask for that space. Other than reminding her to take care of herself and set boundaries, what advice would you all give her if you’ve gone through this? Or what could I do better? Am I causing more harm than good and am actually the problem?

I hate seeing her go through this because I know that she’s really doing her best and is being harder on herself then she should be.